In Which We Consider Our Options

We spent a good portion of today taking it easy and settling back into our usual routines. I know from prior experience that Connor requires a couple of days of down time before I start changing everything up on him, so I'll give him the opportunity to relax a little bit before I start throwing everything in boxes and rearranging his world again. We always pack his room (or at least the visible things in his room) last and set his room up first so he has at least one comfortable space in the house.

Connor went back to school today, and he got to play with one of his favorite group therapy toys ever: the parachute! I remember very vividly playing with a parachute in my preschool class, so it's neat to think that Connor's doing some of the same things I did growing up. He's played with parachutes before in his birth-to-three program, and I think they have the same appeal that the laundry does; for whatever reason, both are hilarious. I'm really glad that he's enjoying school, and I'm so, so glad that we moved. If we hadn't we'd probably be in the middle of suing the school district on top of everything else that's going on, and that would be another huge source of stress. We're so lucky to have such a great school district and teachers!

Connor also spent a lot of time playing with his daddy today; he was very concerned about Jeremy while we were in Texas and asked about him several times each day. He was pretty excited when he saw Jeremy waiting for us at the airport, and I think he's really enjoying having his father home all day instead of at work. It's funny, but Connor hasn't shown any anxiety about Jer being in a wheelchair at all; wheelchairs are so normal for him that it doesn't seem to bother him at all that Daddy is in one. He's also thoroughly enjoying riding next to Jer in the car-- the time he doesn't spend craning his neck to look out the front windshield is spent staring at Daddy with a look of adoration on his face. It's very sweet to see them together.

We've been looking at the logistics of the wheelchair ramp; it's a little more complicated than just slapping some boards down over the stairs. We have to have a permit for any work that will be done, which means that the ramp has to follow ADA standards. Minimum standards say that the ramp can only drop one inch in height for every foot in length, which means that, as an example, if the house has two steps that go down total of 24 inches, the ramp has to be 24 feet long! Also if it has any turns, you have to have a five foot square landing for each turn. We aren't sure what the measurements are on either the front porch or the garage, but we do know for a fact that this isn't going to be a do-it-yourself sort of job. It's a challenge to figure out a way to put in a ramp that won't detract from the value of the house either, sad as that is. If we can't figure out a way to put in a ramp that won't eat up our entire garage or front yard, we may end up needing to put in a wheelchair lift in the garage instead. They're generally more expensive (some of them are really, really expensive but hopefully ours would fall on the cheaper end as it wouldn't have to go up very high) but they wouldn't have the large footprint that a ramp would have. We plan to consult with some remodeling companies and figure out what will work best for us. Of course, we can't really get to work until we actually own the house, so we're kind of limited in the planning we can do beforehand, but we'll do what we can.

Lots to think about!

~Jess

IEP Woes

So we've hit a bit of a snag in our IEP process.

I called our liaison at the school yesterday to let them know that we would be unavailable on the 23rd, 24th, and 25th, because Connor has his surgery on the 23rd and will spend either one or two nights in the hospital. I hadn't yet received any word about Connor's IEP scheduling, but I wanted to make it easy on them, as we could do any other dates in March EXCEPT for those three days.

I received a call back later that evening. Was I absolutely sure that we couldn't do the 25th? Um, yes, I was sure. Well, they only schedule IEPs on Wednesdays, and April 1st was over Spring Break, so they'd just schedule us for April 8th. No problem, right? I told them that the day would work for me, but I'd have to check with his Birth-to-Three therapists as Connor's third birthday is April 1st.

So the last Birth-to-Three therapist called me back today. NONE of them are allowed to come to the IEP meeting if it is after Connor's third birthday. Also technically it's illegal to hold the meeting after Connor's third birthday. I called back and left a voice message for our liaison's office telling them that we really needed the meeting done before April 1st, and that ANY other day in March except those three, including weekends, we could make. I haven't heard back from them yet, but we have an informal meeting up at the school tomorrow morning (with an unspecified number of people to apparently let the IEP team get a better feel for Connor) so I'm sure we'll talk to them about it then.

I guess I could probably just go to the IEP meeting by myself, but the truth is that I'm a little intimidated, especially since I've only met one person from the IEP team (and they had NINE people at the last meeting, so Lord knows how many will be at the actual IEP) and I'd feel better having advocates along that know the law backwards and forwards and sideways and are on board with what we feel would be the goals and accommodations needed for Connor to get an adequate education. I also have kind of gotten the vibe in the last few phone calls from the school that they'll be pushing for Connor to go into the Special Ed classroom instead of the Deaf and HoH class, so it's especially important for us to have someone there from his Family Conversations team as we feel without an interpreter the Special Ed classroom would be entirely inappropriate for him. I don't want to start off the school year by being antagonistic, but I really feel like his team needs to be there and I'm kind of the opinion that, well, the school had three months in which to schedule their IEP meeting, and it's not MY fault they left it until the last possible Wednesday, so what can I do? I don't think I'm being unreasonable by asking for his IEP meeting to happen before his third birthday, though maybe I'm making a mountain out of a molehill by wanting his birth-to-three therapists there. I'm sure they have busy schedules, so I feel kind of guilty. What do you all think? Am I asking too much?

We'll see what the school has to say tomorrow. Wish us luck!

~Jess